The Contract for the Construction of 17 km of Road I-8 between Dragoman and Slivnitsa has been Signed
Eng. Svetoslav Glossov, the Chairman of the Management Board of Road Infrastructure Agency, has signed the contract for the design and construction of 16.98 km of road I-8 Kalotina – Sofia Ring Road in the section between Dragoman and Slivnitsa, from km 15+500 to km 32+447,20, including stage connections. The construction is planned to be started next year and to be completed at the end of 2021.
The Contractor for this section will be GBS Infrastructurno Stroitelstvo AD. The value of the contract amounts to 97 800 298,60 BGN, VAT excluded. This section will be entirely built through funding from the state budget.
The section will have two lanes in each direction, plus an emergency lane. The duration of the contract is 910 calendar days, of which 180 days for the elaboration of the technical design, and 730 days for the construction.
On 15 November 2018 the contract was also signed for design and construction of 14.5 km of road І-8 in the section from BCP Kalotina to the road junction at Dragoman (from km 1+000 to km 15+500). This section will be built by STRABAG BPA DZZD, which includes: Strabag ЕАD, Strabag Sp. z.о.о., Poland, and Bitumina GmbH – Bulgaria ЕООD. The value of the contract amounts to 137 491 883.28 BGN, VAT excluded. Part of the funding has been provided under the EU’s Connecting Europe Facility and the remaining by the state budget. The section will be with two lanes in each direction and an emergency stop lane. At km 12+520 an entrance-exit from the first-class road to the Dragoman intermodal terminal will be built. Ten large facilities will be constructed, two of which at the Kalotina and Dragoman road junctions.
Road І-8 is a part of the core Trans-European Transport Network. It runs along the route London – Budapest – Belgrade – Sofia – Plovdiv – Istanbul – Calcutta, which is the shortest road connecting Western Europe with the Middle East. The section BCP Kalotina – Sofia provides a connection to the Orient/East Mediterranean Trans-European Corridor.
The modernization of the road section will improve the cross-border connection between Bulgaria and Serbia and the development of the West – East motorway network on Bulgarian territory. With the construction of this section, travel time will be reduced and comfortable and safe driving conditions will be guaranteed.